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Summary Minutes:Special City Commission Meeting November 13.2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida <br /> Mr. Cheifet said the shoreline has historically been maintained through the Federal Project, <br /> and the source of sand historically was an off-shore bar area here in Miami-Dade County and <br /> they would dredge the sand and pump it onto the beach. But as recently as 2013 there was a <br /> project in Miami Beach and the last viable sand was used. There is no more sand <br /> immediately off shore, and so the County and the Corps have begun evaluating alternative <br /> sand sources to maintain the beaches here in Miami-Dade County. The Corps recently <br /> completed a study to evaluate dredging and barging sand from offshore. That was met with <br /> some significant public opposition. The County has begun evaluating trucking in sand from <br /> upland mines,while that process has a lot of benefits in terms of quality control and reduced <br /> environmental permit requirements,there are significantly higher costs associated with using <br /> upland mine sand. More recently the County has begun evaluating using international sand <br /> from the Bahamas where they would barge the sand in,unfortunately using that sand would <br /> eliminate any possible cost sharing because the Corps cannot use international source of sand <br /> until all domestic sources have been utilized. <br /> Mr. Cheifet said in the Newport Pier area, as he had mentioned, they have observed some <br /> recent shoreline retreats in this area. The Pier has a long history back to the 1930's, and it <br /> was recently rebuilt in 2012. He showed some photographs of the old Pier that was <br /> supported by a great number of timber piles, very dense, and that acted to knock the waves <br /> down as they reached the shoreline. By reducing wave energy, the sand is allowed to settle <br /> out, it gets deposited on the beach and it stays on the beach. In reviewing some of the permit <br /> applications and the design for the new Pier,it did not appear that the new design considered <br /> a revised pile layout onset of a transport here in Sunny Isles Beach. So,the number of piles <br /> is significantly reduced, almost 50%, and so now the foundation is much more wide open. <br /> When those waves come they can pass under the Pier,they can reach the shoreline to lead to <br /> more erosion. He compared photographs of the old Pier and the new Pier,where in 2013 the <br /> beach was high,the piles were painted down to existing beach grade at that time,and so you <br /> can see that about 2 to 3 feet of erosion has occurred under the Pier since then. We also <br /> performed a cursory review of historic aerial to get an idea of where the shoreline was <br /> historically and where it is today. He showed a photograph of the shoreline, the solid lines <br /> are the shorelines before the new Pier was put in, and the dotted lines are the shoreline after <br /> the Pier was put in. You can see from the yellow,the red,the green lines that historically the <br /> shoreline was relatively stable. You had a nice wide beach,and more recently from the black <br /> dotted line you can see from 2015 the limit of influence of the Pier and it is eroded back <br /> immediately up toward the down drift of the Pier. However, if you look at the blue line <br /> which is from 2006,you can see that in areas the shoreline was relatively close to where it is <br /> today. This may be the result of the Segment 3 Project in Broward County in 2006,that sand <br /> hadn't moved south into Sunny Isles Beach yet, and now in the middle years you see the <br /> wider beach of that sand in Sunny Isles Beach,and now it is properly moving south towards <br /> Baker's Haulover Inlet. It is key to understand this recent shoreline treatment of the Pier, <br /> that is a function of the new Pier foundation, is it a function of maybe a separate event, <br /> maybe sand moving through the system, maybe it is the combination of all of those factors. <br /> And so further evaluation and analysis is required to really figure out why that has been a <br /> recent problem. He asked Penny to talk about some of the recent coastal structure projects. <br /> Penny Cutt asked if there were any questions before she went into the next segment. Mayor <br /> Scholl asked her to explain this issue with the Pier, the density of the pilings, and why the <br /> 3 <br />